Janine Chapa is challenging four-term State Rep. Terry Wilson of Georgetown in the March 2024 Republican primary to represent the state’s House District 20 in Central Texas.
Chapa told Texas Scorecard she is running against Wilson, whom she voted for in the past, because he is not listening to HD 20 residents when making decisions that affect their lives.
“Competition is always good for the customer, and the customer is the voter,” she said.
Chapa is a retired insurance executive who was born and raised in Brownsville and now lives in Williamson County, where she has served as a GOP precinct chair.
“As a lifelong Texan, I’ve seen our Texas way of life change,” Chapa said in her campaign announcement.
“I will fight to protect the things that matter most to Texans: life, liberty and property,” she said.
Chapa’s top issues are securing the border to protect Texas families, farmers, and ranchers; preserving parental rights and school choice; preventing inflation and tax increases to make life in Texas more affordable; and protecting life from the womb to the grave.
Another priority for Chapa is election integrity, an issue she said first got her involved in politics. After the 2020 election, Williamson County’s elections administrator refused to address mistakes by his office. He has since resigned rather than face termination.
Chapa said she is “tired of seeing go-along-get-along politicians refuse to fight for our way of life here in Texas.”
Wilson is a retired Army officer who was first elected the the legislature in 2016. Since then, he has never faced a primary opponent.
He has a “B+” career rating on Texans for Fiscal Responsibility’s Fiscal Index and earned an 82 for his votes on fiscal issues during the 2023 regular legislative session. He also has “A” and “B” ratings from other conservative organizations.
However, Wilson was among the 60 House Republicans who voted in favor of impeaching Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Chapa said Wilson’s “disappointing” vote to impeach “our attorney general who has been fighting to keep our conservative principles” also prompted her to run against him.
Paxton has endorsed multiple primary challengers against incumbents who backed impeachment, and former President Donald Trump has vowed to fight every Republican member who voted to impeach Paxton.
House Speaker Dade Phelan’s campaign recently boosted Wilson and some other Republican representatives by sending mailers listing “conservative victories” in 2023.
Wilson has already received $94,000 for his 2024 campaign, and he currently has $337,000 cash on hand. In the 2022 election cycle, Wilson’s campaign raised $417,000 and spent $182,000.
Chapa told Texas Scorecard that Wilson contacted her when he heard she was running against him and said it was “going to cost $1.1 million to run this race,” but the grassroots candidate said she isn’t going to back down from her challenge to the well-funded incumbent.
Wilson touts using his “leadership experience in government and industry to expand new industrial investment.”
Chapa says the government has “increasingly crept into every aspect of our lives and the American Dream has become more unreachable.”
“We need less government in our lives and that’s why I’m running—to give the citizens of House District 20 a better choice,” she said.
HD 20 covers about a third of Williamson County just north of Austin and includes parts of Georgetown, Leander, and Cedar Park.
Texas’ primary elections take place on March 5, 2024.
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